About – Lotus Outreach Australia

Our Vision and Values:

To promote poverty eradication, universal education, gender equality and the empowerment of women and girls. We seek to do this with integrity and diligence, in a safe and secure manner, prioritising cultural sensitivity, working with respected local partners, true community engagement, and rigorous monitoring of our projects, outcomes and financial dealings.

Lotus Outreach Australia is guided by the UN Millennium Development Goals:

to eradicate extreme poverty and hunger
to achieve decent employment for women, men and young people
to promote gender equality and empower women – which includes access to education.

Lotus Outreach Australia was founded in line with Khyentse Norbu’s vision to work with the most neglected and forgotten children. On the 25th anniversary of Lotus Outreach International he wrote a letter of support for the continuation of the Lotus Outreach affiliates and their programs. You can read the letter here.

Our Focus and Mission:

To prevent the exploitation and slavery of girls – and enable their education.

Lotus Outreach Australia focuses on education of girls as the most proven way to eradicate poverty and lead to independence, good meaningful jobs and sustainable lives. In doing this we are also playing a vital role in preventing the child labour, child sex trafficking and slavery of our beneficiaries – Cambodian girls identified as most at risk.

Educated girls are

less likely to be trafficked or enslaved
have a better chance of financial independence and fulfilled, sustainable lives
help their own and their future families

But it’s not only the girls themselves who benefit from the chance of an education, it is also their families.

When asked about the single most important thing that can be done to improve the world, Former Under-Secretary-General of the UN, Shashi Tharoor stated: If I had to pick the one thing that we must do above all else, I would now offer two words: “Educate girls.” It really is that simple. No action has been proven to do more for the human race than the education of female children. Scholarly studies and research projects have confirmed it: If you educate a boy, you educate a person; if you educate a girl, you educate a family and benefit an entire community.
Source: The Scotsman December 18, 2012

Why Cambodia?

Cambodia is one of the poorest countries in Australia’s neighbouring Asian region.

More than one third of Cambodians live below the poverty line, struggling to survive on less than $1 a day. Poverty is especially pervasive in rural areas and among children, who constitute more than half of the country’s population. (Unicef.org from UNICEF website May 2015)

In Cambodia, along with loss of land for earning an income, past years of invasion, bombing, landmines and genocide have also played a part in so many people living in dire poverty, and in undermining the health of generations. Poverty is at the heart of most decisions made by vulnerable families – whether to take girls out of school to care for sick parents or siblings, or to put the girls in child labour to supplement meager family income. The types of exploitative work available to uneducated children – factories, laboring in fields, or on building sites, in roadside cafes and begging rings can also in the worst cases, be a first portal to being trafficked into slavery – including into the brutal sex industry. We have seen this occurring. We have beneficiaries who have previously lived through this brutality.

Enabling measures to ensure safety, education, healthcare and nutritional supplementation to at-risk girls and their families is also a way of promoting successful communities – which become more likely to secure the health and education of future generations, transforming poverty to sustainable self-sufficiency.

Please download the membership form here LOA Application to become a Member, and email a scanned copy back to us at info@lotusoutreachaustralia.org.au